The police investigating a case of fraud and forgery to grab properties of a retired Deputy Registrar of Cooperatives hailing from Taliparamba here arrested a 70-year-old woman on Wednesday on charges of cheating, even as the woman’s sister and lawyer at Payyannur and her husband who the police said have masterminded the swindle remain at large.
The Payyannur police probing the case arrested K.V. Janaki of Korome, near Payyannur, on charges of forging wedding and other documents to present her as wife and thereby legal heir of P. Balakrishnan, the retired officer who had died in an unnatural circumstance in 2011.
Ancestral properties worth crores of rupees were grabbed by K.V. Shylaja, Janaki’s sister and lawyer at Payyannur, and her husband P. Krishna Kumar, the police said. Janaki’s arrest followed interrogation by investigating officers during which she was said to have confessed that the 'marriage' to Balakrishan was fake.
“Janaki has been getting widow pension since 2011 using the forged documents that were used for claiming she was legal heir to the properties of the deceased,” said Deputy Superintendent of Taliparamba K.V. Venugopal, who is leading the probe.
Though Shylaja and her husband are absconding leaving their mobile phones at their residence at Payyannur, they would not be able to evade arrest for long, he said. The Dy.SP also informed that cases were registered against Janaki, Shylaja and Kumar under Indian Penal Code Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating) and 471 (use of forged documents as genuine).
According to the police, ailing 80-year-old Balakrishnan, a bachelor, who had been living in his house at Thiruvanathapuram, had died in September 2011 allegedly while being taken from Thiruvananthapuram to a hospital in Kozhikode by the couple.
Shylaja had got acquaintance with Balakrishnan over the issue of partition of the latter’s ancestral property. The body of the deceased had been brought dead on arrival and after autopsy handed over to the couple, who claimed as relatives of the deceased.
The body had been cremated at Shoranur. The police investigation, launched following an order by the local court at Payyannur on a petition moved by an action committee, had revealed that Shylaja had got the house of Balakrishnan in Thiruvananthapuram and six-acres of land near Pariyaram here transferred to Janaki using the forged documents and then disposed it of.
